Chad Wienen Wins AMA ATV Motocross National Championship Series title

August 13, 2012

Chad Wienen (above) clinched his first-ever AMA Pro ATV championship title by winning the season finale of the AMA ATV Motocross National Championship Series on Aug. 11 at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn.

Wienen opened the 2012 season with a big win for his all-new Wienen Motorsports/SSi Decals/Walsh Race Craft/Yamaha team, ultimately winning six of ten rounds in the series. Perhaps the biggest feat of all for the 27-year-old was bouncing back from a serious back injury that kept him out of the final four races of 2011.

“This last year to date I was out with a serious injury and I made up my mind that I was going to come back and give everything to win a championship in 2012,” Wienen said. “It's been a long time coming. Everybody has to pay their dues-some more than others-and I'm just fortunate to have this opportunity to come back and do this.”

Joel Hetrick began the Loretta Lynn's finale with the ATVRiders.com Fastest Qualifier Award, topping Wienen's fastest time by less than one second. When the gate dropped for the first moto, the SSiDecals Holeshot Award went to Baldwin Motorsports/PEP/Maxxis' Josh Upperman.

Upperman took the early lead but Motoworks/Can-Am's Hetrick immediately latched onto Upperman with his sights set solely on the moto victory. Hetrick eventually made his way past Upperman for the lead, and by the halfway mark the young gun had pulled nearly 10 seconds on the rest of the field.

Wienen kept a reserved pace in the beginning of the race, eventually applying pressure on Upperman for second. It wasn't long before TBROWN Yamaha/Moto-X-Perts' Thomas Brown put himself into the mix, making it a three-way-battle for second and third place. Defending champ John Natalie got a mid-pack start and finally joined the front-runners, applying pressure on Brown for fourth. Former ATV MX champ and Can-Am/BCS rider Josh Creamer also put himself into the mix early on but eventually dropped outside the top five.

Natalie put his Motoworks/Can-Am machine around Brown for fourth place just before the two-lap card came out and the two continued to dice back and forth until the checkers. Hetrick bested the field in the first moto. Upperman, Wienen, Natalie and Brown rounded out the top five.

In the second moto, it was Creamer who grabbed the SSiDecals Holeshot Award with former ATV MX champ Joe Byrd, Natalie and Brown close in tow. Natalie and Creamer battled back and forth before the 2011 champ took over the lead early on. Natalie began to pull a gap on the second place of Creamer as the race wore on.

Meanwhile, things heated up for the third-place spot as Brown, Byrd, Hetrick, Wienen and even rookie Jeffrey Rastrelli engaged in battle for a most of the moto. Brown eventually pulled away from the pack. Hetrick and Wienen were banging bars while attempting to get around Byrd, who eventually pulled off the track just after Hetrick and Wienen passed him for a top-five spot.

Soon after, Wienen was past Hetrick were applying pressure on Brown for third and the Yamaha duo pushed until the checkers. Brown came out on top for third. His 5-3 moto scores weren't enough to secure a top five overall, however.

Natalie went on to win the second moto and the overall for the day with 4-1 scores, but it wasn't enough to keep Wienen from taking the 2012 championship title. With 3-4 finishes, Wienen took a consistent approach to finish third overall.

“Obviously another championship would have been nice, but I'm really happy with today's win,” Natalie said. “I'm just lucky to be able to leave here healthy and enjoy time with my wife and daughter.”

Hetrick went 1-5 for second overall, while Creamer and Upperman swapped 2-6 finishes to round out the top five.

Rastrelli finished a season-best seventh overall in the season finale, while Ohio's Adam Clark came in eighth. Florida's Mark Madl took home ninth overall, just ahead of Iowa's Jesse Barnes rounding out the top 10.